Students found with gun at Douglass High School

COLUMBIA — Columbia Police took two Douglass High School students into custody Tuesday morning after school administrators discovered a loaded handgun.

By Tuesday afternoon, police linked one of the students, 17-year-old Alonzo Terell Stevens, to reports of shots fired at Town and Country Bowling Lanes and a shooting at Wilkes Boulevard and Paris Road that resulted in two juvenile boys being sent to the hospital. Both shootings took place Sunday morning.

School administrators discovered the gun after a staff member saw Stevens and a 16-year-old girl acting suspiciously.

Stevens was seen exiting a restroom with a purse under his arm, according to a Columbia Police Department news release, which he later passed to the girl. Administrators searched the purse and discovered a loaded .45-caliber handgun.

At 10:17 a.m., police secured the gun and took the two students into custody.

Based on evidence from the bowling alley shooting, police determined that the gun found at the school was used in the incident at the bowling alley.

After police questioning, Stevens admitted he was at both the bowling alley and Wilkes Boulevard shootings but said he did not injure the two juveniles.

Stevens said he knowingly purchased a stolen gun and brought the loaded weapon to the high school.

Police believe that the shootings are a result of a feud between two local gangs, one of which, they said, has Stevens as a member.

Stevens was charged with three counts of unlawful use of a weapon and one count of receiving stolen property. His bond was not yet set.

The girl with Stevens was arrested for one count of unlawful use of a weapon. Police turned her over to the Boone County Juvenile Justice Center.